Did you know that men make movies? If not, the Venice Film Festival lineup will certainly remind you. This year’s competition field boasts two female filmmakers, up from last year’s one (Jennifer Kent with The Nightingale). This year, Haifaa al-Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate and Shannon Murphy’s Baby Teeth will represent 50 percent of the population at the festival. Representing disgraced artists is Roman Polanski, who has confessed to statutory rape. His film J’Accuse will be in competition. The somehow even more controversial Netflix additions this year are The Laundromat, by Stephen Soderbergh and starring Meryl “the Scream†Streep, and Marriage Story, starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. Another notable addition: sad Brad Pitt in Ad Astra (Brad Astra, if you will). The full competition lineup, sans jokes, is below.
Venezia 76 Competition
The Truth, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
The Perfect Candidate, directed by Haifaa al-Mansour
About Endlessness, directed by Roy Andersson
Wasp Network, directed by Olivier Assayas
Marriage Story, directed by Noah Baumbach
Guest of Honor, directed by Atom Egoyan
Ad Astra, directed by James Gray
A Herdade, directed by Tiago Guedes
Gloria Mundi, directed by Robert Guédiguian
Waiting for the Barbarians, directed by Ciro Guerra
Ema, directed by Pablo LarraÃn
Saturday Fiction, directed by Lou Ye
Martin Eden, directed by Pietro Marcello
La Mafia Non È Pìu Quella di Una Volta, directed by Franco Maresco
The Painted Bird, directed by Václav Marhoul
The Mayor of Rione Sanità , directed by Mario Martone
Babyteeth, directed by Shannon Murphy
Joker, directed by Todd Phillips
J’Accuse, directed by Roman Polanski
The Laundromat, directed by Steven Soderbergh
No. 7 Cherry Lane, directed by Yonfan